Die südenglische Stadt Glastonbury zeichnet sich durch eine Vielfalt religiöser Strömungen aus: Neben Anglikanern stößt man hier auf Neo-Hindus, Druiden oder die Goddess People. Als Basis ihrer Feldforschung stellt Isabel Laack die religiöse Identitätsbildung in Glastonbury dar und untersucht die Musik, die in der religiösen Praxis angewandt wird. Daran anschließend entwickelt sie ein theoretisches Erklärungsmodell unter Berücksichtigung neuester ethnologischer und musikwissenschaftlicher Ansätze, um die Rolle von Musik in den lokalen kollektiven Identitätsbildungsprozessen zu erfassen.

Winner of the 2020 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical StudiesIn her groundbreaking investigation from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion, Isabel Laack explores the religion and art of writing of the pre-Hispanic Aztecs of Mexico. Inspired by postcolonial approaches, she reveals Eurocentric biases in academic representations of Aztec cosmovision, ontology, epistemology, ritual, aesthetics, and the writing system to provide a powerful interpretation of the Nahua sense of reality.Laack transcends the concept of “sacred scripture” traditionally employed in religions studies in order to reconstruct the Indigenous semiotic theory and to reveal how Aztec pictography can express complex aspects of embodied meaning. Her study offers an innovative approach to nonphonographic semiotic systems, as created in many world cultures, and expands our understanding of human recorded visual communication.This book will be essential reading for scholars and readers interested in the history of religions, Mesoamerican studies, and the ancient civilizations of the Americas."This excellent book, written with intellectual courage and critical self-awareness, is a brilliant, multilayered thought experiment into the images and stories that made up the Nahua sense of reality as woven into their sensational ritual performances and colorful symbolic writing system." - Davíd Carrasco, Harvard University

Die südenglische Stadt Glastonbury zeichnet sich durch eine Vielfalt religiöser Strömungen aus: Neben Anglikanern stößt man hier auf Neo-Hindus, Druiden oder die Goddess People. Als Basis ihrer Feldforschung stellt Isabel Laack die religiöse Identitätsbildung in Glastonbury dar und untersucht die Musik, die in der religiösen Praxis angewandt wird. Daran anschließend entwickelt sie ein theoretisches Erklärungsmodell unter Berücksichtigung neuester ethnologischer und musikwissenschaftlicher Ansätze, um die Rolle von Musik in den lokalen kollektiven Identitätsbildungsprozessen zu erfassen.

Winner of the 2020 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical StudiesIn her groundbreaking investigation from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion, Isabel Laack explores the religion and art of writing of the pre-Hispanic Aztecs of Mexico. Inspired by postcolonial approaches, she reveals Eurocentric biases in academic representations of Aztec cosmovision, ontology, epistemology, ritual, aesthetics, and the writing system to provide a powerful interpretation of the Nahua sense of reality.Laack transcends the concept of “sacred scripture” traditionally employed in religions studies in order to reconstruct the Indigenous semiotic theory and to reveal how Aztec pictography can express complex aspects of embodied meaning. Her study offers an innovative approach to nonphonographic semiotic systems, as created in many world cultures, and expands our understanding of human recorded visual communication.This book will be essential reading for scholars and readers interested in the history of religions, Mesoamerican studies, and the ancient civilizations of the Americas."This excellent book, written with intellectual courage and critical self-awareness, is a brilliant, multilayered thought experiment into the images and stories that made up the Nahua sense of reality as woven into their sensational ritual performances and colorful symbolic writing system." - Davíd Carrasco, Harvard University